The World - News from May 27, 1988

Poland’s official Communist Party newspaper branded as illegal a planned referendum to establish an independent trade union in Warsaw’s biggest factory. Trybuna Ludu, reporting on plans by a workers’ self-management council to hold a June 13 referendum at the 22,000-employee Ursus tractor plant, said the referendum “would be against the law” because most of its questions are political. The referendum plan grew out of a one-day strike at the plant May 9 that was settled when management joined with the government-sponsored trade union at Ursus, its self-management committee and the strike committee to “sound out the opinion of the working force.”